


Beneath the Mountains High

by 3shipscomesailingin



Category: Infinite Magic Glories: Impact Mosaic
Genre: Demiurge fight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 17:04:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18782464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3shipscomesailingin/pseuds/3shipscomesailingin
Summary: Princess Clow and the Serpent Knight go to defeat the demiurge attacking Colorado Springs. But as always with a demiurge, things are unpredictable. What will they find in the demiurge's creation? Chaos? Destruction? Or maybe...love?





	Beneath the Mountains High

Princess Clow awoke with a sudden gasp. Her phone was blaring, and she rushed to pick it up. “Dammit!” she yelled as she saw the alert had been out for ten minutes. Why did she have to be such a heavy sleeper? She should have been on her way already! She burst out of her room and ran down the stairs. 

It was a very convenient thing, she thought, that being a magical girl meant not having to worry about grabbing anything but her phone and keys before she left. She could just wear her duck print pajamas out the door, saving time for actually fighting the bad guy. She was determined to get there quickly, checking that she had what little she needed while charging out the door. 

And right into the Serpent Knight. Arwen stumbled as she ran into this unexpected roadblock, and Ronald instinctively caught her as she started to fall. He was dressed in his magical uniform, ready for duty, and his cloak was warm against her skin. 

Oh God, one of the oldest and most respected Knights in the country was here, and she was wearing duckie pajamas. She was used to having the presence of mind to transform when scared, or angry, or physically hurt. But Void Terrors don’t generally cause anyone any embarrassment. 

“I...I’m so sorry,” stammered Arwen. “I just, I didn’t expect that anyone would be standing there.”

“Well, I try to make it my personal mission to be there for a Princess in need,” said Ronald, blushing slightly as he set her back on her feet. “Not that I think you can’t do this alone,” he said quickly. “It’s just that, if I can be of assistance, I’d like to offer you a hand.”

Arwen replied to the ground, “That would be...new. I always fight alone. But then, I always fight regular old Void Terrors, not demiurges bent on warping the world to their own twisted creations. So, um, sure, you can fight with me. My car is crammed with stuff, though, so it might take awhile to make room for you in the passenger seat.”

Ronald laughed. “I did drive myself here. If you don’t mind, I could give you a lift instead.”

Arwen looked up at him and nodded. “It does save us twenty minutes of me trying to get my CDs back in order for you to have somewhere to sit. I don’t normally drive anyone but myself around, so it’s kind of a mess.”

“Oh?” said the Serpent Knight, as they walked to his car. “What kind of music do you listen to?”

“All sorts of things, but I do have a fondness for glam metal,” she said. “When your parents name you after an elf, you end up leaning toward things that thumb their noses at normality. Actually, this will be a bit of a long trip. My favorite CD is just on top of the pile, let me go grab it,” said Arwen.  
She ran over to her car and around to the passenger side. Princess Clow took a deep breath, concentrated, and morphed into her magical uniform. That was much better. At least now they were on equal footing, sartorially speaking. She opened the door, grabbed a CD from what was in fact a sizable pile on the passenger seat, and ran back. 

The Serpent Knight had gotten the car started by then, and she hopped into the passenger seat beside him. Thankfully, he was too much of a gentleman to comment on her change of clothing. 

She hadn’t even buckled her seatbelt before putting the CD into the stereo system. Yeah, she knew the driver normally picked the music, but it’s not like they knew each other well enough to hold a conversation for an hour and a half. It wasn’t a bad thing to have something in the background, something that would give her some comfort as she drove with a near stranger to fight a dangerous demiurge. 

Oh, her brain was starting to wake up now. Instinctive reactions were nice and all, but it was a good idea to stop and think about what she was getting herself into. The car had started moving, and it’s not like she was going to turn back. Still, though, this was new territory for her. 

“So, what are we going to be fighting when we get there?” Arwen asked Ronald with trepidation that wasn’t as concealed as she had hoped for. 

“I’d really like to know that too,” he responded with a sigh. “I’ve fought demiurges before, but they’re always unique. It’s great that they’ve got this alert system to let us know what threats exist, but it would be nice if the notifications could be a little more descriptive.” 

“That’s not exactly useful. You just go in blind?”

“Well, yeah. But I’ve never gone to fight one alone, and I think that makes a really big difference. If one of us missed something, someone else could notice it. If someone was too busy acting as lookout to fight, someone else could step up.” 

Arwen considered this for a bit. “I’ve never fought as part of a team before. I didn’t even play team sports in school. How do you know what to do, when someone needs you, when to look around instead?”

Ronald shrugged and smiled a bit, saying, “You just figure it out as you go. There’s no real blueprint to how these sorts of things are supposed to work, and everything changes in the bubble of a demiurge anyway.”

Sigh. She had kind of been hoping for better tips from an experienced magic user than what amounted to whatever happens, happens. Not that she wasn’t grateful. Rolling with the punches of the unknown was still better than fear of the unknown. 

They continued on in silence for a while, listening to the music and considering what awaited them. At some point, Arwen noticed that they weren’t exactly setting any land speed records. She wasn’t expecting triple digit speeds, but the car had never once exceeded the speed limits, even on the highway. Arwen considered saying something, but then she realized: Princess Elanwé had died in a car accident. Sure, that was a drunk driver’s fault, but it made sense that the Knight left behind would do everything in his power to prevent anyone else knowing the pain he had felt when two tons of steel had killed his consort. 

She wondered if he was lonely in Denver. No one else in his apartment, all his friends back in Boston. Ronald seemed much more wired for extroversion than she was. But then, she didn’t get to be the Princess of a realm like Clow by being a social butterfly. 

Looking out the windshield, the dark grey sky was beginning to get a red tint. The sun must be coming up soon, Arwen thought. But as they drove on, the redness grew stronger and bolder, much more than any sunrise. And suddenly, the sky was pure blood red. And she knew that they had entered the demiurge’s creation. 

The Serpent Knight had noticed it too. “Quick, get out of the car,” he said as he opened the door to leave. 

“What? Why?” she asked, even as she was unbuckling her seatbelt. She hopped out of the car and followed him to a noticeable distance from it. 

“Everything has the potential to change with demiurges around, even if you brought it from outside. It’s too risky to stay with something as big as a car around, who knows what could happen to it?” he said. 

“I guess that does make sense. So, now what?” asked Princess Clow. 

“We go forward into the bubble to see what’s become of Colorado Springs, and hope that we run into the actual demiurge sooner rather than later. It’s the best way to minimize the damage to the city and its denizens,” replied the Serpent Knight.

Not only was the sky red, but the land was too. The ground was dusty and pockmarked with craters, and as the Knight and Princess took their first steps, they bounced into the air. Not very high, and not for very long, but it was surprising enough that the landing was less than graceful.  
The Princess might have managed to stick it if the Knight hadn’t been bounding with such energy, but as it was, he knocked her into the dust. The impact didn’t do any favors for his balance, and he fell onto her. 

“I...I’m so sorry!” the Serpent Knight stammered as he scrambled up and off of Princess Clow, blushing furiously. “Are you okay?”

Princess Clow got up with the help of the Serpent Knight’s proffered hand, her face a scarlet red. “I’m fine. Thank you.” 

As they dusted themselves off, she said, “Well, I guess the gravity of the situation is something to keep in mind.”

The Serpent Knight laughed and said, “Yeah, the gravity here sucks less than expected.” 

They got a little ways apart from each other and experimented a bit, jumping in place and bounding from side to side. Pretty quickly they got the hang of moving in the new environment, and they set off on their journey in earnest. 

As they approached what should have been the city limits, there were no buildings to be seen. Instead, there were all sorts of valleys, plateaus, and mountains. There were really quite a lot of mountains. If this was Mars, all of the geographic features of the red planet had been compressed into the city limits. 

There was a quiet beeping sound coming from behind a rock. They stopped walking and readied themselves for a fight as whatever it was started to come out from its cover, but paused when they saw it was a little robot. It didn’t even seem to notice them. It just kept picking up bits of dirt and dumping it into a little compartment in its body. 

“Well, if it’s not bothered by us, I guess we shouldn’t bother it,” said the Serpent Knight, motioning for the Princess to continue on with him. Clow watched the robot for a minute to make sure it wasn’t going to try anything funny before she followed him. 

They bounded through the red dust for what seemed like hours, coming upon nothing but rocks of all sizes and the occasional robot that was entirely occupied with its own projects. Clow started to get an uneasy feeling. “Shouldn’t this be a little more complicated? Nothing’s tried to fight us, and normally I’m a fan of that, but this just seems wrong.”

A rumbling sound began from the top of a mountain. “Oh, why did I say that?” groaned Clow, as she prepared for action. An avalanche of rocks began to fall, and the Serpent Knight and Princess Clow started bounding as fast as they could. The rocks were rolling down quickly, but they couldn’t afford to look back to see how close they were to being squashed. The rocks hit the ground, and the amount of dust they kicked up meant that looking forward became just as much of an impossibility. 

Well, for the Serpent Knight, anyway. He cried out in panic, and Princess Clow did her best to reassure him. “We’re okay, I’ll make sure the rocks don’t hurt us.”

“How can you be so sure?” the Serpent Knight yelled back.

“My entire realm is a dark cave. I’m used to navigating without sight. All I have to do is listen, and I’ll know where everything is.” As if to demonstrate, she suddenly arrived at the Serpent Knight’s side and guided him a little to the right. “Including non-moving rocks, like that boulder you were about to leap into.”

The Serpent Knight said, “Well, I’m very grateful for your save there, but when it comes to dodging big moving objects, we may want to use me as the pushing force. Just tell me which way to go, and I’ll follow through.”

Clow yelled, “Left!” and the Serpent Knight jumped that way, managing not to graze either of them on the little oblivious robot. They successfully dodged a few more objects as a pair, and things were going well. And then the falling rocks caught up with them, and the directions were yelled much more frequently, and they got more complicated. 

“Okay, 2 o’clock leap, push your foot off the boulder, and dodge to 9 o’clock from there,” Clow rattled off quickly. The Serpent Knight managed to perform it all perfectly. They held each other tight as they danced through the hailstorm. 

Eventually, the rocks coming down began to slow, and finally they stopped coming. Princess Clow said, “You can stop now. We’re safe.” It was a good time to catch a breather. The dust was still thick in the air, and it seemed like a good idea to Clow to make sure the experienced demiurge fighter could see what was going on.

The Serpent Knight slowed down, and carefully came to a stop. He seemed to be a little reluctant to let go of Clow. “Thank you so much,” he said quietly. “I was so afraid that I would be separated from you or you would get hurt. But you kept us together and protected both of us.”

Clow said, “I guess it’s like you said. You just figure it out as you go. I wasn’t sure at first, but I found you, and I was able to work together with you to avoid all the obstacles.” 

The Serpent Knight put his arms around Princess Clow and hugged her tight. “You’re fantastic to work with,” he said. 

This wasn’t something Clow was used to. People normally kept their distance, both in her realm and on Earth. Demiurge bubbles really were different. It felt...nice, though. He was solid and warm, and the adrenaline was still pumping through her. And so she tilted her head up, and kissed him. “Same to you,” she said. 

Immediately, she worried that she had made a mistake. Sure, they had to work together to destroy the creation they were in. But they still had to live in the same city after this, to say nothing of the 90 minute drive back home. How awkward was this going to be?

But she stopped worrying a few seconds later, when the Serpent Knight kissed her back and any train of thought she might have had became completely derailed. They enjoyed themselves for a few minutes, but the dust cleared away, and it became obvious that they should move on. Reluctantly, they broke away from each other. 

The Serpent Knight and Princess Clow continued the journey for a bit, but something seemed to be missing now. The Serpent Knight got closer to Princess Clow and took hold of her hand. She smiled, and they bounded off to their destination with renewed confidence. 

Finally, off in the distance, they saw an actual building, but not one that would have been part of the cityscape. It was small and white, and it was the only thing they had to go on so far. 

They cautiously approached the building and circled around it, but nothing seemed to be amiss. Opening the only door, they stepped inside. They tried to be quiet, but there was no sound there to mask their footfalls. Their presence had become known immediately. 

“No, no, no!” screamed a voice down the hall. “Why? Why can I never get away from people? That’s all I’ve ever wanted!” The Serpent Knight and Princess Clow made it down the hallway just in time to see a man in a lab coat sweeping his test tubes off of his desk and onto the ground to shatter. He turned around and glared daggers at the pair of them. 

The Serpent Knight began to draw his sword, but Princess Clow stayed his hand. He glanced at her questioningly, and she whispered, “I know we have to kill him, but I’ve never done that before. This may be a demiurge, but he’s still human. At least I want to know what drove him to do this before we have to.” He was clearly concerned, but motioned her to go ahead.

Princess Clow said, “How did you come to be this way? Why would you take out a city and replace it with another planet?” 

The demiurge scowled at her as he took a deep breath. “I’ve dreamed of Mars my whole life. To study it, to explore it, and to get some quiet time to get some actual science done. I wanted to go to space to get away from people, but it turns out being an astronaut is one of the closest coworker situations it’s possible to have. All people do is distract me from my work. They’re not useful, not like the robots who can analyze samples quietly and perfectly. Other people are completely pointless.”

Clow replied slowly, “I’ve been there before. I don’t get out much. I mostly stay home and cook and go on the internet, unless there’s a void terror (or a demiurge) to fight. And I’ve always done it alone before. But it’s so much better to have someone there with you. Someone you can rely on, someone you can trust to have your back.”

The demiurge laughed. “Ha! No one’s ever had my back. No lab partner has ever even managed to clear the low bar of not either messing up my experiment or stealing my results and trying to claim them as his own.”

Clow said, “Well, there are people out there who are useful and good. People in this very city. And making them into dirt analyzing robots isn’t an improvement to anyone but you. Could you please consider undoing this?”

“Of course not! All I want is just a little part of the world! Sure, it’s a populated city, but I need all those little robots to do my work. I can’t do this without them.”

“Well, those are people, and other people need them. We can’t allow you to do this.”

The demiurge sighed. “Of course you can’t. Well, at least I have science on my side.” He picked up a scalpel and charged at Princess Clow. She didn’t even have time to blink before the Serpent Knight was in front of her, plunging his sword into the demiurge. 

It was merciful that the Serpent Knight was so good with his blade. The demiurge died quickly and apparently painlessly, falling to the floor without a sound. Princess Clow embraced the Serpent Knight. “Thank you for saving me.”

The Serpent Knight smiled. “It seemed only fair to return the favor. Now come on, let’s get out of here. Things are going to change back, and I don’t know the layout of the city nearly well enough to avoid getting hit by a car if the streets suddenly pop back into existence while we’re here.” 

Princess Clow smiled at him as they walked out of the building. “Well, I hope that not everything from here fades from existence.” 

The Serpent Knight kissed her cheek, saying, “I wouldn’t worry about that.” They held hands and walked into the sunrise, as the sky’s red began to fade.


End file.
